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Max and 99 are running hot this week. They break down catastrophic inflation data and what it means for stagflation ahead, hit headlines on animal welfare legislation and foreign policy chaos, and tackle listener emails on Democratic failures and economic warning signs. Off-topic covers toxic RFK Jr. and standout character actors. They rank their Top 5 comfort movies and close with spring training optimism. Enjoy!
Chapters
Intro: 00:00:08
Headlines: 00:06:12
Emails: 00:19:17
Top 5: 00:36:22
Beyond the Bullshit: 00:53:23
Outro: 00:59:24
Resources
ASPCA: Farm Bill Moves Forward with Mixed Results for Animals
Animal Legal Defense Fund: Petition: Stop Horses from Suffering for NYC’s Carriage Industry
Forever Wars: None of These People I Insulted Want To Die For Me in The Strait of Hormuz?
The Independent: Chelsea Handler claims she bought ‘the most toxic’ $6 million house from RFK Jr and Cheryl Hines
UNFTR Resources
Video: Iran War, Energy Spike, and the Inflation Perfect Storm
Episode: The Art of Trumpflation.
Video: On The Record 3-16-26 (Democrats are FAILING | Losing the Iran War | Hasan Piker Rules).
--
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Welcome to UNFTR, this is Omnibus, where we put 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag.
My name is Max, her name is 99.
We are with you, talking about some shit.
I am personally fresh off a temper tantrum and getting over myself and I'm really excited
to slow it the fuck down and just talk to my friend 99, 99, how you doing?
My voice is scratchy today, I think there is too much pollen in the air, maybe.
I did take a COVID test this morning because I was scared, but it was negative, I assume
so.
It was actually triple positive.
Come again?
I'm being sarcastic.
I like your hat.
Thank you.
Yeah.
99 is wearing a, it's a Mets hat, but it's like a, did you do it?
No.
No.
It's just a stylized word, Mets.
Is it like an Etsy kind of thing or is it actually like a, from the official Mets store?
It's an affiliated company, I don't remember who it's by though.
It's cool.
Thank you.
It's a vintage feel to it.
Thanks.
Nice cap.
Thanks.
Dig it.
Just a reminder to everybody, we will be on vacation next week and part of I think my
frustration here today is that I am trying to put 15 pounds of shit and a five pound
bag in anticipation of going away.
The tasks are piling up, the news does not stop.
Very little of it is good and hey, it can get to a fella, but here we are together.
Just kind of hanging out and I'm happy to be with you.
We will be on vacation, returning the week after with omnibus and a whole bunch of other
goodies, but you should still have a couple of things in the podcast pipeline to listen
to.
So hopefully we'll keep you nice and entertained.
So what is top of mind that we need everybody to know before we get into the groove today?
Well, I think something happened with inflation.
Yeah, it did.
Yeah, it did.
So one of the pieces that you will hopefully have heard by the time omnibus comes out or
perhaps seen online if I can get out of my own fucking way is that core inflation is
headed in the wrong direction massively.
So the real point of focusing on this right now, though, is that PPI is the producer price
index is a gauge of inflation in the pipeline.
It's inflation to come and it came in extremely hot more than every other indicator that we're
going to get every other data release that we're going to get this week, last week next week.
This one is the most troublesome, even though it is forward looking in terms of what it
portends for inflation typically for six and eight weeks down the road.
It's backward looking data.
So it's an interesting inflection point where the PPI came in very high.
It's almost a full point.
It's over a full point on the services side.
When you put it all together, it came in at point seven for the month.
That's on top of point five for last month, both of which were way over what expectations
were in this month happened to be more than double what PPI inflation expectations were.
The reason that this is a vital inflection point is that in this specific moment in time,
it is prior to the energy costs being baked in as a result of the war and the run.
So everything that we were basically for telling about the economy and how tariff inflation
once importers got over eating it was eventually going to make its way into the economy.
And all of the other restrictive policies that Donald Trump has put on this country artificially
so mind you is running the economy super hot below the surface.
And now it's finally starting to bubble over again, as a leading indicator, you can expect
the inflation figures not today, but in a month from now from January's figures and
in two months from now from February's figures to come in hot.
And then it's going to spike beyond that.
So the biggest takeaway is that inflation is the impossible thing to tame.
You're going to hear a lot about stagflation over the next several months, maybe a couple
of years, because this is the period that we're heading into.
Where inflation remains stubbornly high with sodas unemployment and the interest rates
are going to have to stay elevated because you can't just drop rates and risk that that
heats up inflation because all of a sudden there's a rush to corporate refinancing and
housing refinancing and the whole thing.
Even though those are things that we could actually use and look forward to, if it does
wind up running the inflation rates even hotter, the Fed is kind of stuck.
This is the definition of fiscal dominance when your deficits and your monetary policy
has run away and you actually have no more levers to pull at the Federal Reserve.
That's where we're at.
And this inflation data, this particular release is just a fucking nightmare.
So super focused on that right now, that's kind of like the leading story of what's
to come.
And oh boy, you can already see it at the pump, you feel it already.
That's going to slow down a lot of vacations, a lot of trips, certainly going to work
its way through freight diesel costs.
That factors into transit and trucking and transportation, the high seas and jet fuel and
all that kind of stuff.
It's just, it's not good.
This administration, it's literally the fucking worst on top of all of the just unconscionable
things that they've done to its citizenry and mass deportations and just that this social
fabric that it's ripped apart, the economic mismanagement of this economy under this administration
is so preposterously catastrophic running out of superlatives.
So there you go.
Should we get into some headlines?
Let's do it.
So I pulled one from the ASPCA.
This was, it was written last week, but I think still appropriate.
The Farm Bill moves forward with mixed results for animals.
So on March 5th, the U.S. Committee on Agriculture advanced the Farm Bill, delivering mixed
results for animals, it's a huge piece of legislation that identifies national agricultural
priorities and reaffirms responsibilities of the USDA.
So there was a victory where there was a bipartisan amendment striking language that would have
removed protections for dogs and puppy mills.
So that was, that was a positive, but there is a provision that invalidates existing
state and local farm animal welfare laws and there was a provision that did not protect
the tens of thousands of American horses who were exported for slaughter each year.
And there is an act included called the Save Our Bacon Act.
This provision would nullify voter approved state bans on cruel farming practices, including
the use of gestation creates for pigs and veal and undo hundreds of state laws regulating
public health and safety.
So what do you think is, what do you think is the biggest miss here of what was on the
table of what could have been outlawing meat?
Okay.
Fair enough.
I don't know.
I mean, there's so many different little caveats like in general, there's, I think,
gross mistreatment of horses in this country.
There's been petitions for years to try to get the horses band and like central parking
stuff because they keep just fucking dying and it's like really disturbing.
So there could have been more provisions for that, you know, generally for protection
of horses, obviously, like just less cruel farming practices.
So it's hard for me to specify just one when the whole process is cruel.
It seems like just the central park issue.
Yeah, I know that's like a rounding error for the mistreatment of animals, you know,
largely in this country.
It just seems like that's a practice that I don't know if anybody misses it.
Yeah, it's horrible.
Like another, like a horse died recently.
They're just totally mistreated and I really hope Zoraan does something about that personally.
Is that on his radar?
Do we know?
I think I've ever heard him speak about it.
People are trying to get it on his radar.
Yeah.
Seems like he seems to be a kind person.
So hopefully, even if he eats meat, he can see that horses don't deserve to be mistreated
in his city.
That's a good opportunity to say, fuck you, Tommy Tuberville, or tweeting out the picture
of the Twin Towers and next to a picture of Zoraan says, you know, 25 years apart.
Pretty, pretty astounding stuff that he can get away with that.
Yeah.
It just happens every fucking day.
Yeah.
My on topic headline in my never ending pursuit to make sure that people are kind of tuning
into independent voices that do really, really credible work, especially when it comes to
foreign policy.
I've given you my favorites before to listen to American prestige, certainly to check
in with Dropsite.
But one of my other favorites is Spencer Ackerman is a tremendous work correspondent, a great
foreign policy analyst.
Also a frequent collaborator, by the way, with the American prestige.
So it's a small community of some really qualified journalists.
I remember years ago, I attended a forum where Jeremy Scayhill was speaking.
He have dropped site formally of the intercept and Spencer Ackerman was the MC of that event.
And just the conversation between those two people was just outstanding and something
that you don't really find through mainstream media.
So my on topic is from his sub stack forever wars.
Actually, it's not a sub stack anymore.
I think he moved over to a different platform.
Anyway, you can find it by looking up forever wars.
The title is none of these people I insulted want to die for me in the straight of hormones.
It's shocking.
This is a quote directly from the piece.
It's shocking even if after taking a deep breath, it is not surprising to see the Bush
administration's Iraq war surpassed as the most reckless and destructive war of my lifetime.
The CIA is already telling reporters that Iran is not its fuck up treasury secretary
Scott Besson is making impotent credibility free declarations about how Iranian oil
tankers are traversing the straight of hormones because the U.S. is letting them not because
the Iranians have leveraged the vulnerability of global energy supplies to put Washington
on the horns of a dilemma.
Trump is threatening to delay his trip to Beijing as if it will be Beijing that suffers.
They're flailing and it's obvious.
Sure, words were never spoken about foreign policy in this administration.
I find it amusing as fuck as somebody who actively follows the work of treasury secretary
Scott Besson, the most visible treasury secretary maybe ever who always gets paraded out to
do the bidding of this administration.
Why the fuck he's even commenting on military tactics and anything strategic?
Yes, I get that it impacts oil prices and the treasury certainly has a voice there,
but he's he's trotted out to talk about actual military maneuvers, which is laughable because
he has the worst tells in history.
And you can see it.
He gave he gave interviews recently where he got pulled away to speak to the president
directly in a situation room and they had to delay it like an hour and when he came
back, he was like visibly shaken because things just keep going wrong in this effort.
And you could see that he's like scrambling to get his place and his tell is that he immediately
starts blinking and stammering before he starts talking again.
I actually watched a video of a body language analyst going over him speaking on topics
that he's assured of right before he gets called away by the president and then his body
language after he gets called back.
And it is amazingly it like completely different as soon as he's put against the wall.
This guy is flummoxed every single time because he knows he's fucking lying through his
teeth.
Anyway, I love watching Scott Besson because it's amusing.
But I hate the fact that he is quite literally like the mouthpiece of this administration.
It's just wild.
So follow Spencer Ackerman.
If you're interested in good foreign policy analysis and especially as this war keeps
going on.
Now, let's get into our off topic headlines because again, it might calm me the fuck down.
I am running so very hot today.
I just thought this was funny.
So I don't support her, but Chelsea Handler claimed she bought the most toxic $6 million
house from RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines.
So as this Chelsea recalled buying the LA home five years ago, according to realtor.com,
the house is located in Brentwood and was purchased for $5.9 million.
She said, I still haven't lived on the house.
And she didn't know they were the owners before she bought it.
And she said, this is how fucked up the house was.
The idea that this guy is in charge of the health of our country when he didn't have
a proper foundation at his house.
And a home inspector told her that the property had the most toxic environment.
And she couldn't live there for at least two years.
She's like, I'm not exaggerating.
It was a disaster.
And I didn't know what going in because everything was under wraps.
She slammed him and called him the embodiment of everything wrong with the administration.
She's also a Zionist.
So, you know, karma maybe, but also it's fucking hilarious that he'd have a foundation on
his house.
That's why you have inspectors.
Well, it seems like the inspectors didn't catch it or like they maybe it was like sold
as is or something.
I guess maybe you assume like a house goes for $5.9 million and it's got a foundation.
Yeah.
Wow.
And I didn't include it, but I think she said three people came in and told me it was
haunted or cursed or something.
So thought that was funny.
Oh, God.
Well, my off topic is with my latest fascination.
And that is of course the pit.
This is from the ringer.
The pit is told by its patients.
If you think it's hectic to watch, just imagine what it's like to be on the operating
table.
Here's a quote from the piece, although the Emmy winning HBO show centers the precise work
complex relationships and limited capacities of its student resident and attending doctors
and nurses, it's the patients who are the secret MVP's in the span of just a few
scenes.
These guest actors have to convincingly inhabit whatever catastrophe has landed them
there.
A severed hand, a heart attack or even just a violently upset stomach.
They have to calibrate the right decibel level of pain, endure invasive treatment and
prosthetics and find an emotional truth within the show's real time choreographed trauma.
I could not support this sentiment in this article more watching this show.
My wife and I sit there and marvel.
We love the cast.
Obviously, the cast is just, I mean, I don't think there's a weak link in any of the
main characters in this cast.
They're all just perfect for their roles.
But a show can very easily fall apart if that supporting cast, the ones that just float
in and out aren't top notch and like right there in line with this extremely high level.
And the character actors that they've brought in, the fact that you don't even recognize
most of them, like I've noticed, there's been a couple of like quasi, like, oh, I know
that person's face or, oh, that's a that guy I recognize him from X, Y and Z.
It comes in periodically and it's almost distracting when you see them.
But for the most part, these people are so amazing at their jobs that it elevates the entire
show.
And I love that this article gave them flowers because they certainly deserve it.
Yeah.
That's fun.
And so on the, you shittier med shows, it's always like, it was laugh at the people who
are just terrible actors.
Oh, yeah.
You know, it's just like they're either they're overdoing it, they're underdoing it or,
you know, there's always one person who brings it down because they can't cast at the caliber
of HBO.
And you always see in the in the law draw, drama is the lawn or like everybody, you know,
every working actor has to get those on their resume because they got to stay in the
union.
And I'm sure the Chicago series and all of them that you watch are have nothing but the
best that Chicago has to offer though, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, always.
I mean, nine times at a 10, of course, I like, I have a, a good eye.
So I'll be like, oh, that person was on PD before.
You can catch them if they've been in multiple shows as different characters.
So that's my running game.
It's always in the courtroom dramas.
I always laugh at like who the judge is because it's like you, they're, they're, you
could tell the casting directors are just like, I got you, I got you.
You're going to be the judge in this one.
And they always stand out because they're always a bit more famous than they should be
for these shows.
And you're like, this is so distracted.
Or there's like a few people who always play cops, like whatever you see them in their
cop.
I have a, I went to high school with the, with the, you're in high school.
I did.
And he's, he's been working actor literally since college, I think, like paying the bills
working actor.
And every once in a while, he shows up on TV and it's so disorienting.
And what's funny is like he, he actually has kind of a, he has a kind face.
You wouldn't consider him menacing, like if you met him in person, but he's always cast
in some unbelievably shitty role.
And it totally belies like his, his countenance and like, and certainly the way he is in person.
But he, he carries it off.
He does so well.
And it's so interesting.
What these casting directors see in somebody to be able to put them in type cast him and
that kind of role.
Because in a million, you'd meet him in a million years, you'd be like, yeah, you'll
be like a nice guy.
You'll be like a, like a kind dad in a homeic movie or whatever the fuck it is.
Not just somebody who literally like walks into, I think one of the episodes he walked
into like emergency room with a fucking automatic machine gun and just starts mowing people
to see, but oh my God, I didn't see that side of you.
Don't you have a friend from college who's also an actor or is this the same person?
A couple of people I graduated.
I went to a liberal arts college and it's a very, very strong theater department.
So a few of the people that I knew went on to become like, like true working actors.
But I'm going to say, or from high school, it was a, it's a very, like, with
in a couple of year period, four from high school.
And then what happened is one of them got into a pretty prominent writing role for a couple
of series.
And so, you know, it tells you who has influence in these kind of things.
And in that role was able to put them sometime, like I've seen things where three of them
are in the same show together.
Wow.
Yeah, people that I graduated with, which is kind of neat.
Small world.
Small world indeed.
All right.
Now we're going to pivot over to emails and let the people in.
The first is a let it stand email where we just let the author of the email have their
say.
This is from John Clark 2212.
Both parties are joined at the hip by big money.
Welcome to capitalism.
The problem is the system and the system is capitalism.
I won't make any comments on that except that I put a together a giant screen that you
may may not have heard or seen during max notes in the most recent on the record.
What John Clark has effectively done here is boil down my very, very long, clearly I've
been agitated all week because that one just kind of came out of my fingers, boiled
it all down to this very simple, very straightforward sentiment.
So well done, John Clark.
This is the common theme, which is reacting to said, screed from Carlos R who said, I'm
even more cynical on this topic.
The Democrats overall are indeed good at bureaucracy, but the way I've been seeing it unfold
the last four decades is that the establishment Democrats who actually say what gets done
and not merely use this as window dressing for their complicity in the big bamboozle.
That's why nothing of real consequence ever happens.
Just look at how they throw every progressive under the bus or co-op them.
They like it the way it is and they show their hand each time they feign disfavor instead
of full blown outrage.
They're in the bag and getting a new track will only force them to find another way to
usher their Republican masters around.
We each create another alternative altogether.
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to disagree with this.
I don't like to distill things down to the whole unaparty argument like, oh, it's just
two sides of the same coin, but it is two sides of the same coin.
And the Democrats by being so, so capable in their bureaucratic way, like the technocrats
under Obama, very, very good at their jobs.
He just hired a bunch of people that were going to prop up and support the capitalist system
and it was what it was.
The technocrats under Joe Biden might have been even better.
I think what slowed Joe Biden's role was Joe Biden and his idea that bipartisanship
was actually still a thing, but I think he might have also used that as a way to nod towards
progressives to be like, I'm trying here, I'm really trying to get things done.
Get things to the finish line and then say, ah, we just couldn't convince the middle.
We just couldn't convince the center.
So we're going to have to retreat back to this very safe, albeit substantial policy, you
know, positions and the bills that were passed under Biden, I'll say forever were
the most extraordinary economic bills, maybe, maybe of my lifetime, but so much of it was
overdue that it wound up just sort of catching us up and then it still fell short of what we need
in order to turn this economy over.
And of course, you know, the failings on Medicare for all, not even paying attention to it, the failings
on minimum wage and any of the other things that would have really supported the bottom end
of the income spectrum all the way through the what's left of the middle class just really didn't
have time to percolate because they took so much time just tinkering around the edges with these
things. And you know, like we said at the time, for his policies to be affected, effective,
they needed a decade and they needed somebody to not come in and dismantle every single one of them.
And that was the single biggest threat to the Biden legacy was Trump's reelection.
And you know, we're living through it right now.
It's proof positive that even the best intended Democrats and even when they've got a winning
hand and a winning strategy by having even the smallest level of control of both houses,
just not ballsy enough to go the full go go go the distance and really get things done for the
American people just to shame. We have a happy with email from William Dreyman.
It's so stabilizing to hear comments since in an American accent. Thank you. I seem to get a lot
of comments from the English speaking world and other parts than the United States of people
that are saying American media largely is trash and they don't get a steady digest of good quality
economic content for sure. So it's always nice to hear from our friends abroad that they're enjoying
what we do. Thank you. They might not even be abroad. Yeah, maybe. No, that's true.
So we have a long mad at here. All right. So this is from this is a mad at from No Well War
then 98 38 said in my humble opinion, this was your absolute worst episode. Oh my.
So this was on this week's on the record. You were doing well until you gave your opinion
on the 2024 election. My background in X-Fangilcal Atheus retired Naval Aviator International
airline captain and federal officer. Damn. We have a 1619 problem that we've never solved.
Biden had moved significantly to the left, implementing the most significant legislation
for working American since Roosevelt and Harris would have continued that trajectory.
Further, Harris ran the best campaign I'd seen in my 68 years. She delineated the specifics in
all of the programs she intended on implementing. All while Trump displayed his insanity and
complete lack of morals and character at every rally slash press conference. And the mainstream
media covered for him at every turn because insanity sells and because of billionaires.
We all saw the monster with our own eyes since at least 2015. Maga's voted for the monster
because they love the monster. American exceptionalism and religion have destroyed our country.
Trump didn't win because of economic promises or any other promises. Trump won both times because
of hate, racism and misogyny. Full stop. Till we eradicate those cancers from our society,
we will fail every single time. I feel like we're half aligned here. But then we really diverge
when we talk about Harris running the best campaign someone's ever seen. Bernie ran a better
campaign. To me, it's stunning that anybody with this background especially can have that view.
Yeah, we just see the obviously we just see this completely differently. And I'm not taking away.
If you felt that she ran a great campaign, your feelings are the truth to you.
Are they sure to you know, Elhorathan 98 38. But I think the results
rely that feeling and maybe tell a different story. I mean, Trump was a historically bad president.
We were pretty fresh still with him in our memory to know that bringing him back into the White House
is going to be fucking catastrophic. And yet the Democrats simply couldn't get their messaging down
to warn everybody appropriately that this was going to be a disaster. And it really comes back to
this like, yes, we are a nation built on hate racism and misogyny. But people vote by truly
believe this by with their pocketbooks. That's it. And the Biden administration and Harris put in
arguably an impossible spot because she also owned that economy. And for her to say
it's not working would have been an admission that her boss wasn't, you know, doing a great job
in communicating, you know, the things that were that needed a little bit more time to percolate
to hit the real economy by them saying that everything was okay. And we just need a little more time.
You know, she, she took a huge risk that people actually felt that and they didn't. And every
poll showed that nobody felt economically comfortable. We are living an enormous economic precarity
period. The problem with the Harris campaign, they've done a enough Monday,
morning quarterbacking even though they don't talk about it out loud is that she did not acknowledge
the genocide in Gaza. She maintained a very pro Israel stance on it. She told everybody domestically
that there wasn't a problem with the economy that everything was going just splendidly. It wasn't.
And you know, she had to own those numbers. As far as the specifics that you're mentioning,
truly, truly, I defy you to tell me anything specific. We covered this in great detail
that the only specifics that came out of her campaign of beyond the platitudes and broad brushstrokes
and the things that she didn't say like genocide in Gaza. The only thing specific that she had in
her economic program was that she was going to put in a first time home buyer tax credit and that
she was going to offer some relief to home buyers. The reason I know this chapter and verses because
we covered it so extensively where like where is the meat? There's no meat on this bone at all.
She is not putting out anything that is going to alleviate the fears, the economic fears that everybody
has. So she wasn't speaking to inflation. She didn't talk about, she didn't talk about the child
tax credit other than just, you know, in extending what was already there, but not talking about the
tax credits turning into direct payments. She really wasn't talking about bringing more people
into Medicare or bringing more people into Medicaid. It was just reinforced the subsidies for
Obamacare, which nobody likes and the prices were going up anyway. Everything is fine. We just have
to let the investments filter through the economy. And I'm going to do nothing materially different
other than offer this first time home buyer tax credit, which didn't fucking matter to anybody.
Because if you don't have the wages to support it, you don't have the savings to put it down payment
and mortgage interest rates at the time, which were still hovering around seven seven and a half
percent, you can't get a mortgage if you don't have the credit for it, don't have the down payment.
And you're certainly not going to take on a seven percent mortgage. So the first time home buyer
tax credit, nobody can even fucking figure out. It didn't make any sense in the context of where the
economy was broadly. So I disagree with you wholesale disagree on her campaign. I think she ran a
historically bad campaign running against Trump should be in theory the easiest fucking thing to do
because he is an absolute madman. But to run against Trump, you actually have to have an idea
that sounds like he I am not Trump. And that's really everything that it's boiled down to.
And the biggest problem that I have going forward, as you'll hear on the screen, if you take a
listen to it, is we are still moving toward a not Trump platform. There's nothing new in the
democratic platform. There's nothing on the horizon for the midterms that would suggest that we're
going to reverse course other than just denying Trump, whatever else he wants to do for the balance
of this election. And there's certainly nothing setting us up to have higher expectations and hopes
for the 2028 campaign other than somehow it getting out into the ether that Gavin Newsom's in the
lead. Pete Buttigieg is certainly around and available that Westmore is a possible candidate
Andy Bashir and JB Pritzker just running out all of them moderate mainstream names that we possibly
can surfacing them and still quieting and suppressing progressives. And if you want the real story
of what happened to progressives, it just looked no further than all of the corporate institutional
crypto and APAC money that just flowed into the Chicago races that happened this week and
positively obliterated any progressive chances. This is what we're up against and the democratic
party are the ones that are allowing this to happen. And lastly, we have our dive into it email
from Camilla in New Zealand. I was hoping you might consider answering the question for me on one
of your shows. My question is this, if the world economy starts turning to custard completely,
what are the first signs that we regular people will see? Where would we look for evidence of the
aforementioned custardization before we are hit in the face with the custard pie? How long
will it take for the proverbial shit to hit the fan for everyday media to report on it as a major
crisis hours, days, weeks, months. I asked because I feel that I've been hearing murmurs about the
unsustainable AI market, the instability of the US for a long time. And I've a sense that things
are on one hand just business as usual and on the other impending doom. I'd like some pointers
on how to spot before it hits us. It's an outstanding question. And here's what I would say.
It depends on where you live, where you exist, along the economic spectrum, first and foremost.
Like if we take the 2009 collapse, the eight and nine collapse, there were people who did very,
very well during that period. There were people that did very well during COVID after COVID. And we
know this because 99 pulled an article last week, for example, that showed that in 2025, we minted
400 new billionaires in America alone. So I can't speak to New Zealand. Obviously, I don't know
the economy very well down there. But I can say that from the US perspective, if we catch a cold,
the rest of the world gets the flu, that the signs aren't just there already, but they've been
flashing red for a really wide swath of the economy. The reason that you can see that it's the reason
you might perceive that it's business as usual is because we have built and oriented an economy
toward the top 50% and really, really toward engineered it towards the top 10%. That's why we can
quote statistics like the top 10% of income earners in this country are responsible for 50% of
consumer spending. But also the indebtedness of the rest of this, the 90% has never been higher.
When you see things really bleed out is when something just blows, right? So in 2008 and
2009, it was the housing market in during COVID, it was absolutely everything in the savings
and loan crisis. It was regional failures of small banks and every time we have one of these
catastrophes, it resets the middle class. Basically, it steals wealth from them and then they spend
the next decade rebuilding it and we go through these many crises. The crises are getting bigger
every time and it's requiring greater intervention. So warning sign number one, how much money are
we pouring into the economy in order to keep the top 50% humming along and the top 10% pulling
away from the pack? Well, you can already see that since 2008, we have poured an ungodly sum of
money into the economy in order to do that. That's a luxury that we have is the United States as a
sovereign currency issuing nation and of course, as the world's reserve currency. But that's a warning
second warning sign is how the rest of the world feels about our the state of our indebtedness
and our ability to pay. So if you look at what they call the long end of the yield curve, which is
the out years of like a 30 year treasury, you notice that it keeps getting higher and higher.
That's because the the rest of the world investor class is betting that we are going to have
unsustainable deficits and we're going to mismanage our economy to the extent that they want
a risk premium for purchasing our treasuries. But I think core to the point here of right of the
here and now is the inflation numbers that we covered at the very beginning of the episode.
That's the real tell here. And I'm saying this as somebody who is not a fan of capitalist systems.
It is a very, very mature, sophisticated and well-oiled global machine to do the things that we do
and can accomplish today is absolutely mind-bending. If you look through all of history,
we've never seen anything as well-oiled and as well structured as what we are currently living
through the problem is there's too many fucking people on the planet and it's not working for enough
of them. And so the cracks when they show are more and more severe at the bottom. Inflation is the
thing that will pop the bubbles that you cannot see. My personal belief is that it's in the private
credit markets. And so Camilla, if you're looking anywhere, look to the private credit markets
because that's part of the shadow banking system and that's where we are running the highest
level of risk right now of contagion. So nobody can tell you for sure when nobody can tell you
for sure what will pop. But I think we're getting a pretty good idea because inflation is going to
expose all of the weaknesses in the economy and that's where it starts to go.
Now why don't we really dial it back a little bit and get into our top five.
This week's category is top five comfort movies. Do you want to go first?
I think I won first last week.
Then I shall go. The first one is the never ending story. Now you'll notice a theme in my
comfort movies is that they're all from a specific time and place in my life. They all came out
probably within 10 years of each other. And I think that as you get older, these are the things you
retreat into, you know, a true comfort movie. Something might have come out in the last
couple of years that you love and you love to watch it. You've rewashed a hundred times and it's
great. But for true comfort, like music, like entertainment from the past, all these kind of things,
I think these are the these are the movies that I would revert to and just feel like, you know,
it's just putting on warm jammies. So the never ending story obviously first. I mean,
what's better than the never ending story? Truly. I've never seen it. I'm sorry. I know about
Falcourt. Okay. I know about his big head. How about a Treyu? You don't have that childhood trauma,
right? No. Yeah. A Treyu. Oh, God. Sorry. I don't I don't understand. If you know, you know,
and if you're listening right now, you're probably crying just at the mere mention of a Treyu.
But everything resolves happily at the end because it is the never ending story after. That's good.
Into the nothing. They look like such strong hands. Number two, Ferris Bueller's Day off.
I thought I was Ferris Bueller, wanted to be Ferris Bueller. Everything about Ferris Bueller's Day
off is absolutely perfect. They are reuniting for a film. Cameron and Ferris. For a Ferris Bueller
film or for something else. Something else. Okay. That's good. I don't need another one. No,
no, we don't need another Ferris. That I have seen. We didn't even need a spin off show. I've seen
many times Ferris Bueller. So. Comfort movie for you too, even if it's not on your list.
Sure. Yeah. Definitely. Love it. My third comfort movie is The Power of One. It's a Steven
Dorf vehicle. It's one of Steven Dorf's first films, I believe, but also stars Morgan Freeman
and a very young yet to be truly discovered Daniel Craig takes place in South Africa. It's based
on the books by Bryce Courtney out of Canadian author who wrote about this and the follow-up to it
is called Tandia. Is this the one you said was a white savior thing? And it is my number one white
savior movie for sure. So when we do white savior movie month, it'll also appear on that list as well.
But it's probably one of my favorite books of all time and it is certainly one of my favorite
films of all time as well. What an interesting name Tandia. Isn't it? Yeah.
And number four on my list is The Thomas Crown Affair. The remake. The one that features
Pierce Brosnan, Renee Russo, Ben Gazera, Dennis Leary, and a cameo from Fay Dunaway who was
in the original. I love this movie so very much. It is the movie that actually introduced me to
Nina Simone. And then I just went down the Nina Simone rabbit hole thereafter because the
biggest set piece in it is set to center man. There's, I don't know, I would consider this like
a perfect little movie. It's an absolute gem, but not as much of a perfect little movie gem
as my number one, which is very hard to find. I rarely seen it anywhere like on any of the streamers,
but you can get it on demand. And it is a good year with 99's favorite Russell Crow. I don't know,
I said that. And Marion Cotear. It's similar to a lot of the movies that I liked back in that time
were of a hard, I think what I envisioned myself becoming, which was actually the furthest from
the truth, you know, like aspirational type figures of the hard charging, but good hard at business
person who kind of like goes astray and then has a redemption arc because they find love
pretty woman. Certainly Thomas Crown affair, a good year. They're, they're all on the same
street corner for sure. And I think it's sort of like a vision of how I saw myself growing up in
the world because of the time and place that I saw it, but they also happen to be really lovely
movies. The redemption arc in a good year to me is the most magnificent because the main character,
the Russell Crow character is kind of such a business scumbag in the beginning of it. And then
really discovers nature and love and wine and the beautiful, beautiful countryside in France
where the wine is made. And it's, I highly recommend it for anybody if you haven't seen it.
And there you go. There's my top five, 99. Well, as usual, mine couldn't be more different.
And as usual, mine are in no order because I don't like putting things in order. So any Harry Potter
movie, one through eight. I know we're not supposed to support her, but I, you know, they were part
of my childhood. I can't get rid of them. And I have them on DVD. If that counts,
all the media, not only does it count, but three of mine I have on DVD and I can't get rid of them.
I was going to say, why don't you get the one you can't find on DVD? So you don't have to find it
anymore anymore. Oh, that one. I have it. Oh, okay. Yeah. But I don't have a DVD player, nor would I
know how to hook it up. Anyway, continue. It's not hard. You just get a DVD player. Yeah, I know.
It seems like it's not a hard thing, but also it's one of the things that breaks my brain. Okay. Yeah.
So the next one is Frozen 2. 2. I love Frozen 2. We love Frozen 2. It's so good. It's so good.
I watch it maybe all the time. Rare for a sequel to be as good if not better. I don't think I,
I think I'm in the minority of, sorry, I get more. Yeah. But I just, it's like, I don't like
the first one. They're not friends. I want them to be friends. You know, the sisters on an
Elsa, don't they wind up friends? Yeah, but it takes the whole movie. Okay. So this one,
they're already friends. Olaf is going through an existential crisis because he's maturing.
And there are other reindeer's, other svens. And Sven is like reminds me of my dog, my, my,
my soul dog, like just like a big love. So, and I love the songs and you're good. It's, I love it.
I watched it the other day. My next one is one I've talked about many times.
Addington. I didn't put that on the list. You know why? Because the patented movies are kind of
stressful. Like in a good way, but he's always getting up to something. So I'm not really comforted.
Well, he's like worried about him. You got it. But absolutely. The third one
didn't get as critically acclaimed. I still loved it. And I haven't, I saw it in theaters,
which I never do, but I went to theaters for pattington. And I haven't gone back because it was
like so moving that I'm afraid. He meets other pattington. He meets his family. Wow.
Where he's actually from because he was drowning in Aunt Lucy and Uncle Pistuzo saved him.
They're all so the beginning pattington is so sad. I have to.
Paddington three. No, just the first patting it. And then they redo it in pattington two to like
show you different angle. And I'm like, why am I watching him drown it? It's just because then he
looks like Henry. And I just think of Henry with like, where's my pattington was cute? Hey. What?
Sorry. Like where's Henry's family? Like his dog family? Does he have brothers? And what do they
look like? And what was his mom like? Oh, it makes me so sad. Then also like, are we evil because
we take dogs away from their biofamilies? Yes, totally. It's like makes me kind of sick. Yeah.
Anyway, the next one is parent trap. Oh, yep. I should have seen that kind. Love parent trap. Yeah.
It's another one. I could I could watch it and then restart it and have the same enjoyment in
the same day. And I think I've done it before. And the next one, same thing. Annie also talked about
a million times. My roommate does not like Annie. So while I can watch Frozen 2 and Leslie or
parent trap, she protests at Annie. But I did make her sit through the whole thing the other day.
Like, I don't know, couple weeks ago, not the other day, but got Tim Curry, got Carol Burnett.
I mean, all star fucking cats, Albert Finney, peak Albert Finney, the other grace,
which I can't remember her real name right now, but she's famous. She was married to Bob Fossy.
And then the guy who plays Poonjob was famous too. I don't know his name. Sorry, Poonjob.
Rest in peace, King. He is a king. It's just so good. Everyone's so good in it. Oh, and burned
up Peters. Yeah. Oh, Mr. Bundles. God, I love what Mr. Bundles name is, but I talk about Mr.
Bundles all the time. Because when Henry's bundled up, I call Mr. Bundles.
Albert Finney, I mean, what a fucking goat that guy was. He only died recently.
Did you ever see Big Fish? Yes. God, I love that fucking movie. That's a great one. It is,
I think, is so underrated. And by the way, he is also in a good year. Oh, well. Yeah.
So there you go. What is great and ranking, I just remembered. And the last one is Fiddler on the
roof. I've never seen it. Do you know that? That makes me sick. Yeah. Yeah. And another thing,
my wife would be so angry knowing that she probably thinks I've seen it. And she loves it.
And she loves the music. I believe she was in it in high school. I mean, she just everything
about it. She absolutely loves it. What's the character's name again? Tevye. Yes.
I'm revoking your Jewish ally card. I get it. No, I get it. That's fine. It's understandable.
Watch it. I will rent. I mean, it's long. It's like three hours long. It's what? Yeah. Oh,
it's good. And that's your comfort movie. A three hour fucking movie. Yeah, I love that.
Because it just keeps going with Lord. It's very beautiful. I actually think you'll relate to it
because it's about a father and his daughter is growing up. Is it going to make me cry?
At parts, it's possible. Yeah. And also when they get pogromed. Oh, God. Spoiler alert.
That should definitely make me cry. Yeah. You've never seen the bottle dance. I have. Okay.
Like I know, I know the music. I can roughly know kind of the story a little bit. You know,
like it's just it's been out there in the ether, but it's never something I said down and
committed to watching. Who is who played Tevye? Super famous dude, right?
Heimtopel. No, not super famous. Not what I was thinking at all.
You think of zero mastell? I was. He's from the Broadway. Got it. Yeah. Thank you.
And then there's a it's based on Tevye and his dollars, which is a book. Then there's another book
called or another movie called Tevye from like the 20s or the 30s or something. I mean,
my mom watched. And it was just like, if you took any of the fun parts that I filled
her roof and filled her on the roof, made it black and white and just so fucking sad.
And like kind of disturbing. So I was like, I guess I'm glad I've to see this source material
in a way, but this is the movie. Do you hope to just bitty bitty bum someday?
That's not. Is that not it? That's so enough. If I was a rich man.
Isn't that from I guess it is. I was thinking of bitty bitty bum bum, which is Selena.
No bitty bitty bitty bitty bitty bum. So you said bitty bitty bum is Selena like bitty bitty bum bum.
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. No, I was doing the bitty bitty bitty bitty bitty bitty bum.
That one. You didn't have that. You didn't have that. Did I add another bitty?
Well, you just didn't just wasn't right. Sorry. You fell. I mean, so me saying,
do you want a bitty bitty bum someday in the context of us talking about Fiddler? No,
it still did still didn't make it still did Selena. Okay. All right.
Rest in peace to a queen. Another queen. Yes. Another rip.
That was I love your little list. Have I told you the first time I saw Selena or the only time
I really saw Selena? No, we watched in Spanish class. We didn't finish it. I was talking about it
to my friends and I hadn't seen the end. Didn't know she died. Oh my god. And someone said something
like I can't remember what they said. I was like, sorry, what?
And finding out her fucking manager kills her like it was like only seeing the first like
or skipping the first part of Bambi. It was pretty wild. Did JLo play her in the movie?
Yes. Yeah. Very, very good performance. Yeah. Did she win something for that? I don't know.
Or was she nominated for that? I wonder if she was nominated for that role. That was a pretty big
movie. Yeah. It was a pretty big deal. Honorable mention for me is sense and sensibility
with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman. It has such a stacked cast.
And Emma Thompson won I think the Academy Award for screenwriting
for that movie. Oh wow. Adapted screenplay. That kind of thing. Orgid. Yeah.
Because it's probably the book. Neat. Yeah. So I love that movie. She's amazing. She is
person you need is not any McFee. Oh.
Wow. I could have put that one on the list. That was a big one with my kid. We watched that
over and over. What a brilliant movie. It was beautiful. I think we were a book series. Yeah.
No, she was she was amazing. I went see the Elvis, the Boslerman. The Boslerman Elvis.
He did the big Elvis movie obviously with Austin Butler. But he just came out with a I don't
even know kind of know what to call it. I thought it was a concert footage. It is concert footage.
The way he weaves it together obviously is very Boslerman. It was fun. It was pretty cool.
It was neat to spend some time with Elvis from that period of his life and really get to see it
up close and personal and his relationship with his band. Kind of an inch deep. The whole thing
like look maybe a little bit like Elvis's career. But I don't know. Pretty fascinating.
Some good glimpses behind the scenes. I would recommend it for anybody that's a that's a fan
of the king. These guys were so tight. They were rocking. He did. I think they said between 1969
and 1977 with his with his Vegas residency. He did 1100 shows. Wow. That's an incredible number
of shows. And as they teased out, which was really sort of the centerpiece of the Boslerman film
film with Austin Butler playing Elvis, he never played outside of North America because the
kernel really fucked them over. Pretty much killed him. Just ruined his ruined his potential.
Not only signed him up for all those bad Hollywood movie deals when he got back from the war
and locked him into those Hollywood contracts where he had to churn out horrible movie after
horrible movie, but he locked him into that Vegas residency because he owed money to the mob.
Elvis's dream was to tour the world obviously. He'd only seen. He'd only been out of the country
because of the war or because of his service and wanted to the world and never got a chance to do
it because he got locked into this contract and then wound up living this like horribly tragic
isolated life in Vegas where he was just, you know, doing the same thing night after night after,
for thinking you imagine doing a thousand fucking shows in that time. It's just astounding. Anyway,
takes a toll on a person as we saw. Sorry, I've just leaked zero thoughts on Elf is.
No, that's fine. And obviously, it's super controversial like in like married a child, right?
What's that? Then you marry like a child?
Priscilla was she like 12. Was Priscilla not of age? That's one I have on my list that I haven't
seen yet is Sophia Coppola's movie Priscilla. I definitely want to watch that and see it from her
perspective. What a life. No, she's 21. 21? No, she was. Why do I think she was a child? She was
stunning. Oh, they were four. She was 14 when they got together. Really?
Yeah, Lord. So I was 1412. What's the difference?
Wasn't Jerry Lee Lewis is like also 14, but also his cousins.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm not. It's, you know, on the steps of grossness, at least Elves is one step
up. Yeah. Great balls of fire. And they're both in, lock the line. Yeah. Great
movie. It was a great movie. I have a beyond the bullshit. Talk to me. I watched the new
dinner ad cliff TV show. Oh, yeah. With Tracy Morgan or Jordan, depending on which one he is in
real life and which one he is in 30 rock, I literally always forget who's who because he plays
himself essentially, which he is more or less doing in this show too. And I thought I was going
to be really stupid, but it was genuinely very funny. Really? Yeah. And like a lot of good political
jokes and just top. It's one of those things were in 10 years. Maybe it won't be as funny because
there's a lot of stuff that's going on right now. But I still, I mean, I remember we're just
fucking cracking up and we watched all five episodes that are out like in one sitting. Yeah.
Oh, wow. And Daniel's very fun. Like the whole cast is just really funny and it's well written.
And if you like 30 rock, I think you would like this too. So I was very, very pleasantly surprised
because it looked pretty dumb from the trailers. 30 rocks and interesting show. Like every time
I've watched it, I've been like, this is crazy. It's yeah. This show is out of fucking control.
And the shit they did. But I never got into it like in it. I never got like into the storyline
or any sort of arc. I never wanted to like jump in and be like, oh, I can't wait to the next one.
But I've dipped in and out of it. And I'm just like, this is fucking, it's very funny,
but it's bizarre. Yeah. I've watched all of it, but I don't remember it. Like it's just
completely out of my brain. Yeah. So my roommate, she's seen it a couple times through and she'll
be like, you remember that? And I'm like, literally no.
Brand new information to me. It's the same with scrubs. I watched all of scrubs. I haven't watched
that. I haven't watched the reboot though. I hear it's pretty good. Yeah. The buffy reboot,
fucking Hulu didn't pick it up. What the hell? So there's just, it's just going to die in the vine.
And then Firefly says we were all, we were talking about this on discord, Firefly,
another joss weed and property. They're all banding together, the cast, and they want to re,
they want to either, I don't know if they're rebooting it, if they're retconning the movie,
I'm not sure what they're doing, but they're going to make it animated to make it more affordable.
But Jane, the character of Jane, it's like a huge fucking Trump supporter in real life and
owns like a million guns and just like a bad guy. And they're still including him. So I don't
think I want to support it because I don't care if he was your friend from 20 years ago. If
your friend turns out to be a piece of shit, you should cut that friend out of your life or just
replace him to now to me to show, get anyone else to do the voice. It's like he doesn't own the
likeness. So I don't really like that they're enabling. I know nothing about it. Totally over.
You wouldn't, but it's a great, a great show. It's not worth explaining, but I think you
would like it. Bringing it back to the beginning, our, my good friend who listens to the show and
despises it, who knows more about the Mets than anybody that I've ever met has made his declaration.
We're going to win. No, I think we're going to win. 88 wins. Wild card. Knocked out.
Interesting, interesting use of the number 88 friend. Shots fired. I'll be hearing about that.
I didn't choose the number. No, you did not. Very suspicious. It is indeed. Pat call on the
kettle black. I think we're going to take it. It's 40 years. It's our year. Did we not play
very sportsmanly like as a country in the world baseball classic? No, we didn't.
Did what then as well win and they deserve it? Yeah. I think we owed it to them a little bit.
We fucking owed it to them to win. So, but only only one of our people was on.
You know, like, you know, Canada's like, fuck. Couldn't we, couldn't we've had the hockey in the
Olympics? If in his way, I was going to get the baseball. Damn it. I mean, if anything,
we, there's other countries we need to apologize to. Oh, so many. Over in Canada. So many.
But that made me a little bit of the Iranian crew team. I was watching the Oscars and the game,
the game with the DR kind of at the same time checking in. That was also controversial that we won
that game. Apparently that we shouldn't have won. There was a really bad call in the ninth.
Oh, is that right? We want to like a technicality kind of. Uh-oh. And then, yeah. So,
you know, the US just being the US, but also it's fucking world baseball. Like you guys are all
going to go play for different teams anyway. Yeah. That's fun. No, it is fun. The thing I hated about
it was when Edwin Diaz was injured when he was celebrating the win at the World Baseball Classic
and then took himself out for an entire fucking season. That's why I'm like, why are we playing
baseball? Not during baseball season. You dummies. But Lendor is back. Yeah. Yeah. Oh,
is will he make a opening day? Yeah. Like that's what he's not back. He didn't play in the World
Baseball Classic. He is back as in playing spring training. Oh, it's great. Yeah. That's really good
news. I'll be there. Look for me in the crowd. Are you going to go? Yeah. Open a day. Yeah.
You got your tickets. Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. Good for you. Good for you. I was doing a
Christian bail. Just like that. He like flips out. You know, the what's his face? Bill O'Reilly,
said who did we're doing alive? Yeah. He is like creating a podcast or something. He's called
we'll do it live. I'm like, now you've ruined the joke for me. It's not funny anymore.
He already has a podcast. Why is he doing another? I don't know. Asshole. Do you ever see him flip out
in the airport from a couple of years ago? No. Oh, it's really great. As good. It's pretty fucked
up because he's just yelling at the gay agent for no like for nothing that the gay agent could
possibly fucking do. And everybody's just like, shut up, Bill. You know, fuck you, Bill.
Fucking asshole. How's he not flying privately anyway? I just like, I wait non-line the amount
of money he made over his fucking career. And you got to stand there screaming at a gay agent.
I think we should go charter your own fucking. Yes. No, I don't think we should be encouraging people
to increase their emissions. Shortest episode yet. Go watch a good year, everybody.
We're, uh, we got a lot planned. I clearly need this, uh, time off to get reoriented. I'm looking
forward to it. Hopefully come back. Tanned, rested, ready to go. We bring me some sand. I can do that.
But I aren't, isn't it like you're not supposed to take sand from some places? Is that right?
I think that why you're not supposed to, or at least you're not supposed to take a rocks from
Hawaii, because like they're, they're sacred. They only have a few of them left.
No, I think it's, like, it's like Boy Scouts. Leave things better than you found them,
which a lot of Boy Scouts were not left better than they were found. Why?
On that note. Thanks on fuckers. We'll see you soon. Bye.
